Cracks in the Wall: Beyond Apartheid in Palestine/Israel
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ISBN-13: 9780745337616
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Pluto Press
Publication Date: 05-20-2018
Pages: 144
Product Dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)
Ben White is a journalist and analyst, who has been visiting and writing about Palestine for over a decade. His books include Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, also published by Pluto Press.
CHAPTER 1 Reality check: Palestine/Israel is already a single (apartheid) state Once we recognize that the situation in the [occupied Palestinian] territories is one of de facto annexation, it becomes clear that Israeli rule there is no longer temporary ... A situation that was meant to be temporary has become indefinite in duration. – Aeyal Gross, Haaretz, 27 October 2015 The people of Israel ... ask to empower settlements all over Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev and in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] – and we will keep on doing so. – Member of Knesset Moti Yogev, 2 February 2017 It was 4.30am on 27 July 2010 when 1,300 armed Israeli police officers descended upon al-Araqib, a small, impoverished Bedouin Palestinian village in the Negev region of southern Israel. After blocking the entrance to the village, Israeli forces – including mounted cavalry, bulldozers, and helicopters – forcibly removed residents from their homes, including 'children and elderly people'. By the end of the raid, the Israeli authorities had destroyed some 45 homes, leaving more than 300 people homeless, half of them children under 16-years-old. The bulldozers did not spare animal pens and chicken coops, and hundreds of trees were uprooted (for 'replanting elsewhere'). According to one resident, the police officers and inspectors smiled as they demolished the village, and 'made victory signs with their hands after the destruction'. A village spokesperson told the media: 'Today we got a close glimpse of the government's true face. We were stunned to witness the violent force being used. The black-clad special unit forces are the true face of [then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor] Lieberman's democracy'. Eyewitnesses told CNN that they saw 'busloads of civilians who cheered as the dwellings were demolished'. Just two days before the pre-dawn raid on al-Araqib, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told government colleagues that a Negev 'without a Jewish majority' could constitute a 'palpable threat' to the state. The story of al-Araqib's residents is an all too familiar one for many Palestinian citizens of Israel: forcible displacement from their ancestral lands in the years after the creation of the State of Israel, broken promises by the state, land appropriation for 'security purposes', and a bureaucratic system designed to thwart any attempts by the indigenous population to claim their rights. In more recent times, Israeli authorities have ramped up their efforts at preventing al-Araqib's residents from returning to their land, including by spraying toxic chemicals on cultivated fields and ploughing up crops. In addition, the state and Jewish National Fund (JNF) have spearheaded a foresting project intended to plant 'one million trees on the western land of the village'. Some 90,000 Bedouin Palestinians live in dozens of so-called 'unrecognised' villages across the Negev. Though they constitute 25 per cent of the population of the northern Negev, Bedouin 'occupy less than 2 percent of its land'. Meanwhile, in recent years, Israeli authorities 'have allocated large tracts of land in this region, and public funds, for the creation of private ranches and farms'. According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) document in 2010, out of 59 such 'individual farms' in the Negev, only one is 'allocated to a Bedouin family and the rest to Jewish families'. In the words of HRW researcher Joe Stork, 'Israel employs systematically discriminatory policies in the Negev. It is tearing down historic Bedouin villages before the courts have even ruled on pending legal claims, and is handing out Bedouin land to allow Jewish farmers to set up ranches'. Just a few days before the bulldozers went to work in al-Araqib, a similar scene had played out in the West Bank, as Israeli authorities tore down Palestinian homes en masse in al-Farisiya, a herding community in the northern Jordan Valley. On 19 July, Israeli forces invaded the village and destroyed more than 70 structures in one fell swoop, including 'homes, stables, sheds, water tanks, two tons of animal fodder, fertilizer and wheat'. Israeli authorities also targeted eight kitchens and ten bathrooms. The mass demolitions left more than 100 Palestinians homeless, half of whom were children. Among the items destroyed were water tanks and irrigation pipes donated by global charity Oxfam; at the time, its advocacy officer Cara Flowers said the area looked like 'a natural disaster had taken place'. Flowers added: 'With no access to shelter, water or fodder for their goat and sheep herds, an entire community is being forced to leave their land'. Just over two weeks later, Israeli forces returned and destroyed 27 tents provided by the Red Cross to residents who had been left homeless by the initial demolition raid on 19 July. Israeli authorities targeted al-Farisiya on the grounds that the structures had been built 'illegally', that is to say, without an Israeli-issued permit. Under the Oslo Accords, the West Bank and Gaza Strip were divided into so-called Areas A, B and C, as a way of delineating where the Palestinian Authority could exercise limited autonomy over civil affairs. In Area C, the Israeli military retained full control of security and civil affairs. Therefore, in Area C – where al-Farisiya is located – Palestinians must obtain building permits from the Israeli occupation authorities. The catch? These permits are almost impossible to come by. In July 2016, European Union diplomat Lars Faaborg-Andersen told the Israeli parliament that out of 2,000 permit applications by Palestinians from 2009 to 2013, only 34 were granted – less than 2 per cent. During 2016, according to the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), 91 per cent of 'applications for building permits in Palestinian communities in Area C were rejected'. Meanwhile, UNSCO reported in May 2017, out of 94 submitted outline plans for Palestinian communities in Area C, only five have been approved by Israeli authorities. The 'cumulative area' covered by Israeli-approved plans – where Palestinians can 'legally' build – is thus less than 1 per cent of Area C. In the Jordan Valley specifically, Palestinians are denied access to and/or use of 78.5 per cent of the entire area on various pretences: the municipal areas of illegal settlements, closed military zones, so-called 'state lands', and so on. According to a 2017 report by The Aix Group, the Palestinian cultivated area in the Jordan Valley is only 37–40 per cent of the total, 'due to extensive cultivation' carried out by Israeli settlers. The average Israeli settler, moreover, 'has almost 10 times more available water than the average Palestinian living in the area'. Speaking to Oxfam, Ali Zohdi, a herder and resident of al-Farisiya, explained the difficulties faced by the villagers: 'Every time the army comes and demolishes the houses and animal pens here we rebuild, but they come and demolish again. Our life is the goats and the sheep, and without this source of income we lose our life'. Meanwhile, as Oxfam noted, 'the nearby Israeli settlement of Rotem thrives'. The piles of rubble and twisted metal left in al-Araqib and al-Farisiya over a few days in the summer of 2010 were a microcosm of the grim reality that has taken shape in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). For both Palestinian citizens in the Negev, and Palestinians in the West Bank under military rule, Israeli authorities carry out displacement and dispossession with a rubber stamp of 'due process'. The Green Line, the post-1949 armistice line that distinguishes between territory held by Israel before and after 1967, has been erased in practical terms; the reality on the ground is that of a single regime. In this territorial unit, Palestinians are subjected to institutionalised discrimination, whether they have Israeli citizenship or are under military occupation. Note the similarities between the events and their context in al-Araqib and al-Farisiya; indigenous Palestinian communities struggle for their very survival thanks to a legal system and bureaucratic apparatus shaped by Israel's explicitly discriminatory political priorities: Jewish homes are built, Palestinian homes are torn down. * * * June 2017 marked 50 years since the beginning of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip (the constituent parts of the oPt). According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, this is the longest running military occupation in modern times. Israel's military rule of the oPt has lasted for the vast majority of the state's entire, 70-year existence. Over the last five decades, Israeli authorities have pursued a de facto annexation of the oPt, advancing 'facts on the ground' even as various diplomatic initiatives have come and gone. Central to this long-term project of incorporating the territory conquered in 1967 into the fabric of the Israeli state are the settlements. Today, there are more than 200 Israeli settlements in the oPt, including 137 state-sanctioned colonies (twelve of which are in East Jerusalem), and some 100 or so 'outposts', technically unauthorised settlements that have nevertheless benefitted from varying degrees of state support – and in some cases, received retroactive 'legalisation'. All Israeli settlement activity in the oPt is a violation of international law, since the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring its citizens into the territory it occupies, an act proscribed as a war crime by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This has been the position of the United Nations Security Council, United Nations General Assembly, the International Criminal Court at The Hague, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Conventions, and others. Indeed, just a few weeks after the West Bank had been conquered in 1967, an Israeli government legal adviser explicitly stated that to colonise the occupied territory with civilians would contravene international law. There are now more than 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and more than 200,000 in East Jerusalem. Revealingly, the settler population has more than doubled since 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), with more than 50,000 settlement units built in the West Bank since 1995.33 Even just during US President Barack Obama's two terms in office, a time when the White House invested a good deal of energy in the peace process, the West Bank settler population grew by more than 100,000 – a 20 per cent increase. In 2016, the last year for which there are complete figures, construction on new settlement homes in the West Bank rose by 40 per cent compared to the previous year. 2016's total of 2,630 housing units was the second highest number of construction starts for 15 years. In 2017, Israeli authorities proceeded with the establishment of a brand new settlement, in what was the first such move since 1992 (excluding the retroactive authorisation of outposts). The new settlement was established for settlers removed from the Amona outpost following a lengthy court battle, and, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now, is located 'deep in the West Bank', in a region that 'serves as focal point of settler land takeover and settler violence'. Peace Now added: 'the message that is being conveyed by the government of Israel is that it seeks to heighten its control over the West Bank and that it has whatsoever no intentions of ever evacuating the territories and achieving a political agreement with the Palestinians'. This move followed other steps intended to facilitate settlement expansion in recent years, such as the declaration in 2014 of almost 1000 acres near Bethlehem as so-called 'state land'. In 2015, a total of 15,300 acres in the West Bank were 'ratified' as state land, the largest total since 2005. The approval of a new settlement followed hot on the heels of an even more significant move in February 2017, when Israel passed a new law designed to 'retroactively legalize the expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land'. The so-called 'Regularization Law' was intended to pave the way for Israel to 'recognise thousands of illegally built Jewish settler homes', including in outposts. Even before the law was passed, Israeli authorities had been trying to legalise about a quarter of the 100 or so outposts, effectively creating new settlements under the radar. The new law was passed a mere six weeks after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, condemning Israeli settlements in the oPt and other related violations of international law. Yet in the three months following Resolution 2334, Israel announced plans to build more than 5,000 settlement housing units, including 'deep inside the West Bank', in addition to building permits for 566 settlement units in East Jerusalem. One of the less well understood aspects of Israel's colonisation of the oPt is the size and significance of the settlements' physical footprint. For while the built-up area of residential colonies constitutes 'only' 2 per cent of the West Bank, a full 39 per cent comes under settlement local authorities' jurisdiction – land which, according to UN OCHA, Israel has 'consistently refused to allocate ... for Palestinian use'. Palestinians in the oPt are also impacted by 'de facto settlement expansion' carried out by settlers, processes which typically 'lack official authorization', yet take place 'with the acquiescence, and at times the active support, of the Israeli authorities'. Nor is it just about the settlements and their local authorities; the de facto annexation of the West Bank is also about transport networks, water resources, telecommunications infrastructure, and more. As Israeli journalist Uri Misgav wrote in March 2017, if an alien landed in the oPt 'and you told it that this was not part of Israel, it wouldn't understand what you were talking about'. He continued: Two Supreme Court justices live there [the West Bank], as well as cabinet ministers, the Knesset speaker and other Knesset members, as well as a host of government officials. The Electric Corporation provides electricity, the Mekorot national water company supplies water, the National Roads Company looks after roads and the National Lottery erects and manages public buildings. Factories, businesses and services operate there without limits, including schools and a university that are under the Ministry of Education's supervision. State-funded cultural institutions are compelled to perform in every settlement. Palestinians, meanwhile, in 'those [same] areas', are 'also subject to Israeli law, but Israeli military law with military courts and directives issued by the regional military commander'. It is this 'two-tier system of laws, rules, and services' (HRW) that places Israeli settlements in the oPt at the centre of an 'inherently discriminatory' system (Amnesty International), whose related human rights violations include 'arbitrary movement restrictions, demolitions, forcible transfer of Palestinian communities, [and] restricted access to natural resources for Palestinians'. As of December 2016, the UN counted 682 physical obstacles to Palestinian movement in the West Bank, an extraordinary figure for an area smaller than Delaware. These obstacles included checkpoints, earth mounds, road blocks, road gates, and trenches. The settlements are, in other words, at the very heart of Israel's military regime in the oPt; at any given time, more than half of the Israeli army's regular forces are in the West Bank – of whom, almost 80 per cent 'are involved in direct protection of the settlements'. It is a picture of pure colonialism. * * * Israel's de-facto annexation of the oPt has proceeded over the past half century at varying speeds, and through different mechanisms. The only explicit act of annexation that has taken place (thus far) with respect to the territory conquered in 1967 – excluding the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights – was the area that became known as East Jerusalem, and this occurred almost immediately. In the first few weeks following the Six-Day War, Israeli officers 'toured' the area, 'maps in hand', in preparation for drawing Jerusalem's 'new borders'. They had one clear goal: 'include the maximum territory with the minimum Palestinian population'. In total, Israel annexed 70 square kilometres to the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, the vast majority of which was land that 'belonged to 28 villages in the West Bank' as well as 'to the municipalities of Bethlehem and Beit Jala'. In 1968, more than 4,200 dunams – over 4 square kilometres – was expropriated from 'mainly Palestinian owners'. Two years later, in August 1970, eight separate orders saw 10,000 dunams (10 square kilometres) of land in East Jerusalem confiscated and used to establish the settlements of Ramot, Gilo, East Talpiot and others. Read an Excerpt
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Table of Contents
Foreword by Diana Buttu
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Reality check: Palestine/Israel is already a single (apartheid) state
2. The impasse in Israel
3. Jewish communities divided
4. Progressive alienation, far-right embrace
5. BDS and the backlash
6. Palestinian green shoots and signposts
7. Self-determination, not segregation
Notes
Index
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